James Agee, "A Death in the Family"

Setting: Knoxville, TN
Period: 1915
Published: 1956

A ponderous novel taking place over only a couple of days (mostly)with vivid and exacting descriptions of the characters' reactions to a death in the family. The person who dies is Jay Follett(at age 36 in a car accident) husband of Mary, father of Rufus and Catherine, ages 6 and 4. Central to the plot are also Aunt Hannah Lynch(Mary's Aunt), Uncle Andrew, Joel and Catherine (Mary's parents), Ralph (Jay's brother), Walter Starr (family friend)and the minister Jackson (who refused to say the entire burial rites because Jay was not baptized). The contrasts are: children vs adult point of view; religion vs atheism; different ways that people respond to grief - ie: Rufus going to show off with the group of boys talking about his father's death - the day before the funeral. Mary retiring to her bedroom after being plied with alcohol. Extended family is close by - her parents, brother, and Aunt are within walking distance. A different time and place.

The details are sometimes enough to be maddening but then Agee pulls it together in the end - for ex: the description of Rufus being teased by older boys in the neighborhood, going back again and again for further humiliation is juxtaposed to the day after his father died when he is the center of attention with the boys because it was his father that was in the newspaper.

Interesting when I did some research and found that there are many autobiographical elements in the book - Agee was six when his father died and he went by his middle name as a child, Rufus.